Last week, the Danish technology and biotechnology company Evaxion Biotech A/S announced on its official website that the company will develop customized cancer vaccines targeting new tumor antigens (endogenous retroviruses, ERVs). It is understood that ERV occupies about 8% of the human genome sequence. It was captured by human cells after the invasion of ancient retroviruses millions of years ago. After mutations, deletions and other changes, it has become a trace of the "dark matter" lurking in the human genome. These ERV sequences sometimes insert themselves into other genes, disrupting their normal activity, or act as switches for oncogenes.
The press release stated that Evaxion discovered these novel ERV cancer vaccine targets through the company's artificial intelligence technology platform "AI-Immunology", making it feasible to design personalized and precise vaccine solutions, especially for patients who do not respond to traditional cancer immunotherapy.
According to reports, Evaxion's AI-Immunolog model is at the forefront of infectious disease and cancer vaccine discovery. The model can simulate the complexity of a patient's immune system and can quickly and uniquely identify, predict and design candidate vaccines to provide universal or personalized treatments to combat rapidly evolving pathogens and malignant cells. It is expected to completely change the landscape of immunotherapy.
Evaxion said that with the heightened attention to this breakthrough treatment concept, the company has initiated preclinical related research activities with the goal of generating proof-of-concept data by the second half of 2024. The press release also mentioned that Evaxion has presented the latest insights on these exciting opportunities at the American Society of Hematology (ASH) annual meeting.
Birgitte Rønø, the company's chief scientific officer, wrote, "With increased focus on ERV cancer vaccines, we aim to accelerate development and provide therapeutic solutions for patients with cancers considered unresponsive to immunotherapy." He noted that the ERV cancer vaccine target represents a promising breakthrough that can significantly broaden the scope of cancer vaccines.
Rønø also emphasized that the company "has taken a major step forward in its commitment to improving healthcare through innovation and AI. We are already seeing strong interest in ERV-based vaccines and look forward to further supporting the strong potential of these proof-of-concept data."
On the day the press release was released, Evaxion, which was listed on Nasdaq, closed up more than 113%, but fell significantly in the following two trading days. One day after Evaxion's surge, the British VariationalAI announced a collaboration with Merck Laboratories to use Variational's AI platform to design innovative and selective small molecule drugs.
Handol Kim, CEO of VariationalAI, wrote, "The application of AI in drug discovery is accelerating. Through Variational's Enki platform, chemists only need to submit their target product information and can obtain novel, diverse, selective and synthesized lead compound structures in a few days, thereby quickly entering the lead compound optimization stage."
It is worth mentioning that Merck is already a major shareholder of Evaxion, and the two companies are jointly developing cancer vaccines to treat melanoma.